


House Of Princes

by Spiced_Wine



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 12:09:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2850377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finrod and Glorfindel, in Valinor and Middle-earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Stranger From The Mountain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Esteliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Esteliel asked for _The Silmarillion: Finrod/Glorfindel (or just gen focused on one of them, they are my favourite two characters out of the Silmarillion so anything that focuses on one of them would be amazing)_
> 
> I hope this is okay. It is not set in my 'verse but there are some nods toward it. 
> 
> I owe you so much for the many, many hours I have spent engrossed by your fanfiction. 
> 
> I hope you will forgive the fact that I have used the Sindarin names rather than Quenya.  
> This runs parallel to canon, so that events are familiar.

**House of Princes**

 

**Chapter 1: The Stranger From The Mountain.**

 

~ It was rare, now, for the Noldor to make the journey to high Ilmarin. In later years, Finrod thought it might have been foresight that moved the Valar to hold this feast, a coming together of those who were, inexorably, moving away from them.

If it was foresight, it was already too late. There was open talk now of the lands of Endor, vast and free where his grandsire, Finwë had awoken, and where the Noldor might found great realms. The topic of Middle-earth had never been taboo, but neither had it encouraged discussion. Those who made the Great Journey told of an ancient darkness that haunted the footsteps of the first Elves. Those memories had been enough to breed content with Valinor, until now. But as yet it was only talk, if spiced with the seeds of rebellion.  
  
When Finrod received the invitation, he accepted. There was no reason not to. He had not been to Ilmarin since a childhood visit to his grandmother and thought to distract his mind, for a time, from the complications in his life. Also, it was rare to see the House of Finwë all gathered in the same place. One might learn much by observing.

They thought him the most peaceable of Finarfin's children, but even he could not escape the tidal pull of his uncles or their children. No-one, it seemed could do that. Finrod was aware that certain of the Fëanorions considered him too bland for friendship (“Milk-and-water,” he had heard Curufin say dismissively, when Finrod reached adulthood. “Milk-and- _honey_ , brother,” Celegorm had corrected, with a low-toned laugh that brushed Finrod's spine like fur) but he had long been a friend of Turgon. He had no need to borrow pride from Fingolfin's youngest son, having a store of his own, but propinquity had fanned it. Nevertheless, there were some who were surprised when Finrod removed from his father's house, though every noble son of the Noldor was forming his own household in those days. Then the difficulties arose, ambitions and jealousy among those who followed him. 

Ilmarin was how he remembered it: vast, white-pillared, timeless. The feast, in a hall larger than the Great Square of Tirion, was presided over by Manwë and Varda. There was music, played by Vanyarin bards. Maglor Fëanorion's skill surpassed them, but he was not even asked to sing, which smacked unmistakably of disapproval against his House. Fëanor and his sons were, allegedly, the instigators of much of the recent unrest and, for all the delicacies served, the free-flowing wine, tension crackled in the air. Fëanor blazed, flanked by his magnificent sons like the centerpiece of a diadem. Fingolfin and Fingon were no less arresting to the eye. The space that separated them was bridged by Maedhros and Fingon, either immune to the ever-widening schism between their fathers or, more likely, too close to let it affect them. Finarfin, sitting apart from both, cast chill looks in their direction, then seemed to realize the futility of it, and addressed himself to his family.

Finrod turned his eyes away, toying with his food as he glanced up at the dais. The Vanyar, as always, were seated close to Manwë and Varda. He did not know any of them well. It had been a long time since the Noldor and Vanyar were close.  
  
He had thought, when young, that the Vanyar were immaculate, stainless as the snows of Taniquetil, and certainly they looked it. Ingwë, accounted High King of all the Elves, (though not, it went without saying, by the Noldor) had hair the colour of frost, eyes of cobalt. He was stunningly beautiful, and aloof as the Holy Mountain. Finrod could see no expression in his face at all. He looked away, met a pair of eyes that owned Ingwë's shade. But these _blazed._

He stared at the man who leaned against a pillar, whom had not been in the hall before, Finrod would swear. His hair was bound back in braids as gold as precious metal, but his winging brows were dark, and the curl of his full-lipped mouth spoke of passion. He was tall, an athlete's figure draped in robes of emerald green.

How long he gazed, Finrod did not know; long enough to see the wine-rich, complex smile, the long lashes drop over those brilliant eyes as if in recognition of something. Heat struck like a slap across Finrod's cheeks. He reached for wine and, when he looked again, the man was gone.

His reaction shattered the careful poise that framed his mind and body. He was devoutly grateful for the formal clothes that concealed his unexpected arousal, for the wine running cool into his stomach, the goblet his hands could close around, even his father's voice when he spoke, introducing a fair-haired woman gowned in silver. She made a courtesy, and Finrod reflexively bowed.

“King Ingwë's youngest daughter, Amarië,” Finarfin said, jolting Finrod back to the world of politics as he realised what was happening. His father made no secret of the fact that he wanted Finrod to wed. If Amarië was aware of it, she showed no sign, but Finrod knew all about social masks, and the strain of wearing them. He smiled, inviting her to sit. She thanked him in a voice like high, clear bells. Yet his thoughts strayed, as he maintained polite conversation, to the man, burning out from among the pale Vanyar like a fire. He looked into Amarië's calm eyes and realised the impossibility of asking her. He could not be so discourteous.

The feast passed like flotsam on a river and Finrod, returning down the great road that ran through Taniquetil's everlasting snowfields, looked back. The pillared halls reached into the sky and were blank, giving him no answers. 

OooOooO

He dreamed. It was always the same dream, or a variation of it, and he would wake, hot and hard with need. Now, he blinked himself out of sleep to a room filled with Laurelin's light. It flooded over his aroused body, drew a frustrated moan from his throat. He raised his hands, plunged them through a silken cloud to the firm flesh beneath.

“Yes,” he murmured, half-asleep. Then, “ _Why_?”

The man's eyes were blue jewels, and wholly predatory.  
“Does it matter?” He smiled. “Beautiful Finrod. Do you know what you look like, laying there, twisting in your lustful dreams? They do not really know you at all, do they? Any of them?” His laugh was rich. “But I do.”

Then Finrod was fully awake. He dragged his hands free of all that imprisoning splendor, felt his heart drumming in his breast, the hectic heat under his skin.

The stranger was naked, flesh gleaming. The dim light limned taunt muscle, the curve of one straight shoulder escaping from waves of hair, high cheekbones, a sultry mouth that curled over white teeth.

“Who _are_ you?” He did not ask why the man was here. Untouched he might be, save by his own hands, but he was no fool. Briefly, he wondered why he did not feel outraged by this uninvited presence in his chamber. He let the thought go like a handful of mist, uncaring. 

“I will not tell you that — yet.”

“You live in Ilmarin?” It hardly seemed possible.

“Yes.” He ran his fingers through Finrod's hair, drew it towards him. Against his own it was thick and straight as windrows of hay, creamy white. The stranger let it fall, caught Finrod's face between elegant hands. “You recognised me.”

“I did not,” he denied, his stomach clenching. “I do not know you.”

“You recognised what I _am_. I know what _you_ are. What you want.”

What he wanted...was the kiss that plundered his mouth, the hands on his back. _Yes._ Light detonated in his mind until he could see nothing. It broke him apart to a hunger that stole his last breath.

Warm fingers curled about his cock. He said something, he was not sure what, a curse, a plea.

“I will show you what you are.”

Tremors flitted across Finrod's flesh. He went down under the stranger's body like prey beneath a stooping eagle.

He had no frame of reference, was almost a stranger to pain, and when he was entered, he convulsed violently. The engorged length was slicked with oil but stretched him unbearably. His hands closed on lean-muscled arms, his head flung back into the pillows. A cry built in his throat. He swallowed it. This was what he had wanted, had ached for, but he had not known it would be like this.  
“No.” The word broke between his teeth. 

Jewel-blue eyes swam in a haze of gold. Finrod's breath came in panting gasps as the man held himself on strong arms.  
“Are you sure?”  
  
He could not answer. He writhed around the penetration and then, without warning, a locked door inside him burst asunder. It hurt, it _hurt_ and he welcomed it. Let the man take him, and let him never stop...

When a deep thrust touched a place deep within him, he gasped. It came again, a pleasure that grew deeper, keener. His cock burgeoned once more. His bones melted like flame-eaten candles. He cursed, grasped at the sheets as his world fell apart and there was only the flight toward release, higher, higher. _Never stop, never stop..._ The stranger destroyed him and created him anew, forced truth from the pores of his skin, the truth of what he was, what he always had been. He reached desperately toward the release that came in a violence of agony and bliss, that was glorious, far beyond the simple nuances of pleasure. Again and again it racked him until there was nothing left.

At last he lay still, panting. He was fiercely sore, inner muscles still pulsing with the aftershocks of orgasm. It was _wonderful._ He said, seeking his voice: “Eru. I do not know what to say to you. What am I supposed to say?” 

The man uncoiled from the bed.  
“Nothing. Or you can thank me. This is what you wanted, is it not?” Golden waves cascaded past lean hips. Finrod raised himself on one arm, admiring.  
“Are you leaving?” He did not want that, or not yet, while (he hoped) his household still slept. The light that dripped through the drapes was still dark silver. Having at last experienced this slaking of his secret hunger, he craved more.

“I am getting wine. I have not,” he threw over one wide shoulder. “finished with you yet. And you are not fully sated, are you?” He picked up the chilled jug, tutted that there was only one glass, and returned with both cup and wine. They shared it. Finrod's throat was dry, swollen.

“You have wonderful eyes.” The stranger traced their arches. “I went to the seashore once; where the waves wash shallow over the sand it is just this colour. Rare among the Noldor.” Turquoise, they said, from Finrod's mother, swan-maiden of Alqualondë.

“You said you knew me.” Finrod returned the wine-glass. “That no-one else did.”

Dimples sparked as the faint, lazy smile deepened. “You need to be mastered, Finrod, to be dominated. At least in bed.”

Finrod could not dispute his words. Other faces passed before his mind, ones he had dreamed of. Every dream ended the same way, in a heady welter of longing and confusion and, until now, shame.  
“How did you know?” he asked. 

The dark brows tilted.  
“The same way you knew me.” He drank. “Why am I the first?”

Why indeed? “I am the son of a prince and the eldest,” he said simply. “Certain things are expected of me.”

“And what of the sons of Fëanor? Fingolfin's eldest son, and his daughter? Are certain things not expected of them, too?”

“My father is not Fëanor or Fingolfin. He would not understand.” He added, “It is not a lack of love, rather a failure of understanding.”

The man, still a stranger despite what they had shared, put the wine-cup aside.  
“Sometimes they do understand,” he said. “And see reflections of themselves that they are not comfortable with.”

Disconcerted, Finrod shook his head.  
  
“As I said, we who are fashioned this way, we recognise one another.” The man's expression changed. Fires flickered again, burning up in his eyes. “But I will waste no more time in talking.” 

OooOooO

By the time Laurelin's golden flowers began to unfurl, Finrod had fallen apart and gathered himself together again and again. He had never imagined that he possessed the passion so apparent in others of Finwë's line, thought the fire had only brushed him sidelong, leaving a lingering warmth, no more. The truth was, under the deep pool of stillness, a façade woven to protect himself from too-curious eyes, lay _this._ And this was...  
...His eyes bound behind silk, his hands tied, his voice pleading as he knelt. Without sight, his flesh felt every stroke like iron and fire. He did not faint; he was strong, but he came close, falling away from consciousness to be revived by wine at his lips, by kisses, the bite of teeth. His body was a crucible, pain and ecstasy melded together, and he could not separate one from the other. Neither did he want to. He could no longer form coherent thoughts. He only knew that for a while after release he would drift in languor, assuaged, but then would come the desire — again — that fed upon the stranger's mastery of his body. He was made to beg for what he wanted, and did so. Such words passed his lips as he had never dreamed of saying, or not aloud.

When he sank into the great bath, enveloped by scented, steaming water, he wanted to sleep. It was the only way to prolong the experience. He felt long fingers wash his hair, was drawn under the flood of fresh water that rinsed it clean, slicked it against his wet body.

“Can you stay awake?” the man asked amusedly as they walked back to the bedchamber. Finrod smiled, stretched with a hiss of pain, as he surveyed the crumpled bed. The sheets were marked with seed and blood. He stripped them off. He would have to dispose of them. No servant would dare to question him, but rumours would seep from the launderers out into his household, and thence to the city. At this moment he could not bring himself to care, but later he knew he would. He must. He was still Finrod, Finarfin's son, to whom no breath of scandal clung. Not that he thought this was scandalous, he realised, with some astonishment, but others might.

“Such deep thoughts.” A hand came under his chin. There was a smile. “I have slaked myself on you, and could again, and you are thinking of your reputation?”

“And you are not?” Finrod asked with a flash he did not bother to hide. He had hidden so many things until now; there was a delicious freedom in unleashing what he thought and felt. He was still drunk with sex, the demolition of all his barriers. “You come here secretly, through my window, and you have not told me whom you are.”

“I am Vanya,” the man deflected. “And no, I am not thinking of my reputation. But I will respect yours, beauty.” This time the smile was warm. Finrod stared at him without speaking, then his breath caught and he slipped down on the bare bed, wincing.  
  
“The pain will ease.” The stranger reached for his discarded clothes. He had folded them neatly on a chest. These were not the formal robes he had worn in Ilmarin, but still of the finest cloth, boots of velvet-soft doeskin.

“Why?” Finrod asked. “Why me, and not one of your own? It is a long way to come to bed some-one.”

“The Vanyar are...content. Or most of them.” The man drew his hair through the neck of his tunic, shook it loose. “You Noldor...you are proud, and damnably arrogant. Most prefer to dominate, as I do. I did not expect to find one such as you among them. How could I let you pass by, untasted? Oh, you are proud also, sitting there straight-backed, head raised, tired and in pain with my bruises upon you, your eyes like lamps, still begging me for more, as your mouth did, so — many — times.” He leaned over, and Finrod's heart slammed into a gallop. “I could rip your soul from your body with sex, and you would _let_ me.”

The shock ran through Finrod like a downstroke of lightning.

“ _That_ is why. The look that invites your own ravishment.” He ran a finger down Finrod's jaw, and even that lightest of touches sent his nerves humming like a harp-string. “Do you know how many Noldor would have shown you what I did? I could even tell you their names. Your folk are rich food for gossip. Too rich, many of the Vanyar would say. And yet you are constrained by who you are. You did not know how to break free. But I came from outside. I am not of Tirion. And you could not say no. Could you?”

The thought of refusal had not so much as flickered across his mind. 

“It is so tempting. I could remain here, see just how far I could take you.” 

“Yes,” he whispered, dry-mouthed. “ _Oh, yes._ ” He slid his hands up the emerald tunic, rising with them as that sleeping demon re-awoke in the cobalt eyes. Finrod thought then that the man would off his clothes and begin it over again, the glory and agony of it. His breath came harsh and shallow through parted lips. 

“You really would let me,” the stranger marvelled. He gripped Finrod's neck, pulled him into another kiss that turned him to wax then, with a sigh, let him go.  
“But my time has run out — for now.” He turned, walked to the window, sent a smile back across the room and, moving like a great cat, set one hand on the sill, leaped out. Finrod followed him, saw the gold hair flash, then vanish into the deep shadows of the garden. 

OooOooO

Finrod thought he would be outwardly changed; that eyes would look at him and _know_. Perhaps they would, had they known what to look for, but the stranger had been right in saying that no-one truly knew him. He had made sure of that. Even his family saw what they expected to see, thus his façade of composure could and did conceal. But he _was_ changed. He looked at people, wondering what they would be like in the bedchamber, if they would give him the same magnificent experience as the stranger. There was a thrill in speculating now, but such things could not go beyond the privacy of his mind. And the stranger did not return to assuage his awoken hungers. Finrod, confused, then annoyed, tried to forget him, and failed. He turned to the contentious politics of Tirion.

His father made a house-guest of Amarië and, as the years passed, Finrod formed a friendship with her. Finarfin watched, approved, and spoke to his son of a betrothal.

Finrod felt himself being backed into a corner. With his siblings eschewing marriage, he felt it his duty not to disappoint a father increasingly troubled by the divisions among the Noldor but there was a limit, and Finarfin brought him to it. There was also was the uncomfortable examples of Indis, Ingwë's sister and Anairë, his eldest daughter, both of whom had wed Noldor, both of whom were separated from their husbands. Why would Ingwë want yet another of his female kin to marry into the House of Finwë? As for Amarië, she might be a filial daughter, but this situation was surely unfair on her.

She seemed not to care, always poised, delicately serene. Once she had told him that marriage was as much a matter of religion as love among the the Vanyar. The further up the Holy Mountain they dwelt, the greater their status. Every-one aspired to climb it, to come to the Halls of Ilmarin and, at last, even to the feet of Manwë and Varda. If they could come to it by marriage, well and good. The Vanyar were not like the Noldor, Amarië said, (Finrod knew that) with their minds never still, ever searching. The Vanyar had found what they wanted, and need look no further.  
  
“But then marrying a Noldo,” Finrod said with a quiver of laughter, was surely a demotion in their eyes, moving down and not up?  
  
“Oh—” She raised slim shoulders. “Politics.”  
  
Finrod regarded her. He wondered if indeed all the Vanyar were thus. There were old tales of their lives on Endor that gave the lie to it, though people could change. And then, there was the stranger from the mountain.

When pressed, Finrod could not pretend to be a desirable husband when quite different hungers rampaged through his dreams, when he woke from them, body throbbing with remembered sex. Politely, finally, he told his father that he would not wed. 

Finarfin's eyes and voice could have cut the ice of the High Pelori. They would need allies among those close to the Valar, he told Finrod. (Politics) The inevitable argument was private and did not go beyond the chamber, but others noted the coolness between them, after.

And then everything came down in darkness and blood, and Finrod found himself leading his household away from Tirion along the sea-strands of Aman. The last years had brought restlessness to his heart, but even when Melkor's plots were uncovered, it did not decrease. There was no cure for it, and their broken world could not be mended. Finwë had been slain, and Valinor could no longer contain the Noldor. Or their vengeance.

Finrod had learned swordplay, but took no part in the battle against the Teleri. They were his mother's kin, and it was one thing to practice for some vague, distant conflict, quite another to see warriors falling to blade and arrow and dagger, red blood pooled on Alqualondë's white quays. Perhaps there was no-one in all that host, (save the Oath-driven Fëanorion's) who was not shaken by that encounter, whether they admitted it or no. It seemed as if everything that had been building within the Fëanorions was unleashed upon the Teleri. Fingolfin's people had charged into the battle without a blink, as had Fingon, which action said much, even now, after everything, about love and loyalty.  
  
Seeing his father's horrified face, thinking of his mother, Finrod would not board the stolen swan-ships. He followed the coast, followed Fingolfin, followed when the Doom of the Noldor was pronounced and Finarfin turned back. The prophecy did not daunt him. He would _not_ be threatened; he had sworn no oath neither had his sword let blood. Not yet.

Then came the Fëanorion's betrayal, and the bitter Helcaraxë that honed them if it did not slay them. They killed the great white bears for fur, seals for meat, leaned into the wind's cruel teeth as they walked. After, Finrod thought that the fire in their hearts had proved greater than the cold, but the cold was not the true enemy. The Helcaraxë was a frozen sea, and it _moved_. They had not known at first, the sound the ice made as it shifted and cracked under the weight of the host, but they came to dread it, to listen for it even in their brief moments of sleep. The exposed sea was dark as death and colder as it swallowed the unlucky. Some groups were stranded, their islands of white separating, drifting away. Often, thank Eru, they would be carried against thicker, firmer floes where the group could rejoin the march. But not always. Time seemed suspended under stars that were more brilliant than in Valinor, or snow that howled like insanity and struck like whips. The Helcaraxë knew only two kinds of weather, and both were savage.

Finrod, like all the leaders, walked up and down the line of his people, his arm around an orphaned youngster, a man whom had lost his wife, a woman her husband. Grief, they came to learn, could kill as surely as the Ice. He encouraged them on step by step as his breath froze on his lips. The intervals of rest were short. They knew they must keep moving. The Ice, they agreed, could not last forever. Morgoth could not cover the whole world with cold.

If he had been proud before, Finrod learned a new pride on that march, for his people, for all the host of Fingolfin, for Fingolfin himself, who lead them and whose eyes, brighter than the northern stars, fixed unerringly upon the East as if he tracked the half-brother he had released and sworn to follow, whom had betrayed him, left him to return in shame to Valinor, or perish.  
They were strung out, thousands of them, some forced to break new and perilous paths when the ice failed, yet at each halt Fingolfin would have his silver trumpets blown to call the leaders to his camp. There they would tell over the names of those lost, arrange hunts for skins and food, pick groups of the strongest men and women to guard the edges of the host and (from Fingolfin's people) a vanguard to test the ice. It was at one of these meetings that Finrod learned formally of Elenwë's death, though he had not needed to be told. He had felt Turgon's grief. Yet he had not the look of a man who would give up and die. His face was frozen, resolute with hatred against the Fëanorions who had brought them to this pass. 

Finrod found himself thinking, as he walked, about the stranger from Ilmarin. That experience was so far removed from this frigid exile that it seemed a dream of desire. He remembered heat (just a memory, now) in him, on him, pain that felt like beauty, ecstasy that took him away, for precious moments, from the brutal cold. His own voice, begging.

When the messengers came back, telling of land, the relief and renewed vigour rippled back through the host of the Noldor like fire. They lifted their heads, quickened their steps until the words were made truth. The earth was cold, treeless under a carpet of dim moss, but firm underfoot, thank Eru, blessedly stable. Finrod could have gone down on his knees and kissed it. He did not. There was no time, yet. His people were the hindmost, and there would be stragglers, there always were.

He trod back onto the ice, his lords at his side. It was clear, the stars glaring down, bright as the eyes of the host. The white waste flashed cruel teeth in a ravenous smile.

 _You have devoured enough of us,_ he told it. _No more._

The stragglers came singly, in pairs, small groups clinging together. Many laboured under personal possessions from Valinor; more than empty weight, they were memories of the home they had left behind. The wagons that had brought the riches of Tirion to Araman were gone, their wood used as fuel, and there were few horses to pull or bear burdens. Even those who had the forethought to bring grain had not imagined crossing the Helcaraxë, and many had sent their mounts back to Valinor rather than see them die.  
But there were some. Blankets were fashioned to shield thin hides, the small sacks of grain were shared and the horses, though bred to warmth and light, were as high-hearted as their riders. Fingolfin's mighty Rochallor had proved a survivor, as had Finrod's own stallion.

Beyond the Ice, Finrod could see fires springing up, circles of lamps, tents, but he would not leave until he was sure no more stragglers would come. It had proved impossible, in the storms, to watch every-one.

They joined him, after settling their own camps, Fingolfin, Fingon, Turgon, Aredhel, Finrod's own brothers and sister. Fingolfin laid a hand on his shoulder and gripped it. His face under the stars was harrowed to a blazing beauty that took the breath.  
“Uncle,” was all he could say, still somehow ashamed that Finarfin had turned back. Fingolfin was not well-served in his brothers, and Finrod knew that these splits, deadly as the breaking ice, would serve them ill in days to come. They should have come to Endor united. It had seemed, for a while, as if they would.

“Well done,” Fingolfin said simply. “When we are gathered and rested we march south to find my...Fëanor.” South to where they had seen the reflected glow of fire under the clouds, and known the swan-ships burned. Fingolfin's expression was unreadable; it always was when he spoke Fëanor's name or referred to his half-brother in any way. With a sudden rush of love and pity, anger at the Oath, the Doom, the treachery of kin, Finrod said, “I follow you, my Lord, wherever your path leads.”

“You already have.” They walked side by side. “Though why it ever came to this, why he would think me a traitor to his cause, which is mine too, Oath or no...” His teeth snapped together. The stars fell into his eyes, nested there, burning.

Finrod gripped his arm strongly. “He was mad with grief, surely.” He had no desire to make excuses for the inexcusable actions of the Fëanorions; he simply wanted to offer some kind of comfort.

“Yes,” Fingolfin agreed after a moment, but the word was hollow as a black cavern. He went forward, tall and graceful, to help a group of three who came as if in a dream, through the sparkling dark.

OooOooO

Finrod was the last to leave the Ice. There had been no other stragglers for a long time, and he did not think there would be any more now. The boom and crack of the ice floes, still ominous, even now they were on land, formed an eerie counterpoint to the noise from the camp, because the latter sound was hope. There were even voices raised in song and laughter, a harp, a flute. His heart lifted a little in spite of all. The Noldor were resilient. Laying a hand on his breast, he bowed to the souls of those lost and turned away toward the welcoming fires. Then, quickly, he swung back.

They were yet distant, these two trailing figures. One was tall, hooded and cloaked in bulky white fur, who more than half-supported a struggling youngster. Finrod ran to meet them. It was a terrifying thing, going back out. The ice was weakening, he could feel it under his boots, did not dare look down to see the movement of water, dark and hungry, beneath. Though it was barely perceptible, it had been growing milder as they trekked East, the ice breaking with increasing regularity.  
The youth's eyes were clawed by shock. When he stumbled, his companion picked him up. He was tall and moved with power, even bundled in furs.  
  
They were half way to the shore when they heard the sound, felt the sickening shift under their feet. A narrow black line opened ahead of them.  
  
“ _Go on!_ ” Finrod shouted.  
  
They ran. He saw those on the shore surge toward them as cracks spread, the gap widening, and cried at them to _Get back!_ Together they sprinted, the ice unsteady now, moving apart like pieces of a puzzle — and leapt. Finrod felt the water yawning under him like an eager mouth with bitter breath, then his feet touched the other side. But they could not stop. It was like some mad childhood game, jumping from one floe to another, racing death, unable to pause even for a heartbeat. One more...and the sweet touch of solid ground.  
  
The man, his arms still clasped around the boy, landed beside him, neatly tucked a shoulder and rolled. As he came up, his hood fell back. Massed starlight blazed over a spill of filigree-bright hair.  
  
Finrod had not been warm since Araman, He was suddenly hot as flame. 

“ _You?_ ” He groped for words. “ _Ilúvatar_! How come you here? You are Vanya.” Ingwë had spoken. None were permitted to leave Valinor to follow the Noldor, even had they wanted to. As far as Finrod knew, none had. 

“I did not ask their permission.” A tilt of the head, a long look from those well-remembered blue eyes. He pushed the boy gently into the willing hands that reached out. “As to why I am here —” He glanced past Finrod. There was a space for privacy, and he turned to give the curious crowd his back. “When I saw you I was already restless in Ilmarin. I had been so even before I reached adulthood. My father said I was a throwback to the Vanyar who awoke here in Endor. In that and in...other ways.” A smile etched his mouth. Despite coming so close to death, he was composed as a cat. “I know how it is for the Noldor and the Teleri. You have some freedom, but you are still expected to conform. For the Vanyar there is little _but_ conformity. If a man wishes congress with a man, or a woman with a woman, they must keep it very secret.”

“And so you sought out one of the less...conformable?” Finrod raised his brows coolly against the heat that fisted in his loins.

“I sought out _you._ ” The man's teeth flashed like frost. “And when I returned to my father, we argued. He guessed where I had gone, and to whom. I did not hide my reaction to you well enough. And then, there was Amarië.”

“Amarië? What has she to do with you?”

“I did not think you should marry, not with your proclivities,” the man said quietly. “But you would not be the first or the last, and if that was what you both wanted, I could not step between you. I did not know, isolated as I was, that you would refuse wedlock, though perhaps I should have guessed. You are not the kind to run in harness, or not outside the bedchamber.” Finrod flushed in delicious shock. The man added, “Amarië is my sister.”

“You are _Ingwë's_ son?” As far as he knew, Ingwë had only daughters. He tried to remember if he had heard any rumour of a son. He could not. But then if, as the stranger had told him, the Noldor were rich food for gossip, the Vanyar were not, and little news came down from Ilmarin.

“I am his youngest child, born after he removed from Valmar to Ilmarin. Few of the Noldor know me. My father is not...proud of me.” There was nothing in his face, but Finrod felt how saying the words cut him. “Amarië is my older sister. She did not know about us, but I promised my father I would stay away from you. For her sake. And then...” He made a gesture that seemed to encompass all that had happened. “I decided I could no longer remain in Valinor. It was either imprison me or let me go.”

“You have been following us all this time?”

“Since Mandos spoke to you. I saw your father turn back.” And then: “I am sorry for that, Finrod.”

After a moment to compress both anger and grief and tuck it away, Finrod nodded.  
“He was heartsick.”

“So were you.” The man clasped his arms. “I watched you as you kept your people together.”

“And you were there, ever behind us, helping those we left behind.”

There was a shrug under the fur. “And you came out on ice you knew might break at any moment to help us.”  
  
Finrod stared at him. “Are you going to tell me your name, now?”  
  
The man smiled like white light. “I am Glorfindel.”

OooOooO


	2. The Rising Sun

 

  
**The Rising Sun**

 

Fingolfin took them to his tent. His black brows were raised in question but his eyes rested on Glorfindel's hair, and there was somewhat more than curiosity in them. Tousled by the storms of the Helcaraxë, unraveling from its braids, it shone living gold in the lamplight. Fingolfin was not the only one to be entranced by it. Turgon's Lieutenant Ecthelion, all obsidian and white-ice, had stared in approval as they passed. Even Turgon, made hard by duty and grief stopped in his tracks.

“My Lord.” Finrod spoke formally. “This is Prince Glorfindel Ingwëion. He followed us from Araman.”  
  
Fingolfin's mouth shaped words of dismay and visibly bit them back.  
“I know your name,” he said. “My mother told me of your birth, though we have not met” There was a tense silence, which he suddenly broke with the beautiful smile that made him beloved. “You should have approached me. Are we not kin?” Then his lips hardened. Fëanor was kin. Finarfin was kin.  
“I saw what you did, both of you.” He settled a hand on both their shoulders, drew them against him. “This is not the time for recriminations.”  
  
The strength and gentleness of the embrace made Finrod think, painfully, of his father. He wondered if Glorfindel did the same, if Ingwë had ever held him thus.  
  
“Come,” Fingolfin said at length. “Drink with me.” He took two steaming cups from the waiting servant and proffered them. They had harboured their wine on the Helcaraxë, using it only for wounds and cold. It went down Finrod's throat, honey and fruit, a taste of memory, of hot golden days that had seemed to last forever. 

“You cannot go back across the Ice.” Fingolfin tapped his own cup with one finger. “If we had any ships — ” Again, the tightening of his mouth. “I would send you.”

“It was my _choice_ to come, my Lord,” Glorfindel responded calm, but with an undertone of fine steel. “As it is my choice to stay with you. I am, like you, Exile and anathema, even to my own father. The Valar will fence Valinor against us. I heard the Doom, as did you.”

Fingolfin favoured him with a long look that melted into understanding. “No father ever truly renounces his children.” He touched a hand to Glorfindel's cheek. “But there is no way back. You and I will talk, when you have rested, and you will tell me what you wish to do, now.” 

Glorfindel inclined his head.  
“I am at your service, Sire.”

Fingolfin said, with clear startlement at the address: “I do not claim the title of king.”

“A courtesy, my Lord.” But the following silence was weighted. It raised the hairs on Finrod's neck. He broke it.  
“You do need food and rest,” he said to Glorfindel. “Eru, we all do. Uncle, I will take him to my camp unless you need us for aught else.”

“Go.” Fingolfin kissed his brow and then Glorfindel's. “Rest while you may. We will not have long.”

Though his kiss had been warm Fingolfin's eyes, as they left, were stricken. What did Glorfindel know? The Vanyar were known to be a people of prophecy. He had covered the slip quickly enough, but among the Elves of Valinor the word 'Sire' was used only to address their High Kings, and if Fingolfin owned that title it would mean that Fëanor, _and all his sons_ were dead. The thought was too shocking to encompass, for Fingolfin too, from his reaction. Though they might deserve death, it was impossible to imagine a world without the Fëanorions; they were loved or hated, never overlooked. They made a _place_ in the world with their presence. Finrod glanced at Glorfindel's face, but it was inaccessible, reminding him strongly, and for the first time, of Ingwë. He would pursue this when they were alone.

OooOooO

Glorfindel leaned his neck into the pull of the comb Finrod teased through his hair. All that disheveled gilt; it required patience to work through it and Finrod had that, not least because the feel of it flooding over his hands fed that hot coal in his loins. For a time he did nothing but tease through the long, loose tangles. When he sensed that Glorfindel was more relaxed, he asked.  
“What else do you know?” He pitched his voice low. There was no answer but a tensing of the wide shoulders before him, the sudden flap as a banner outside caught the rising wind. “Glorfindel! You must tell Fingolfin. You all but prophesied he would be High King. And you know what that means. If the Fëanorions all die it could change the shape of this war before it is even begun. We need to know.”

“But I know nothing more.” Glorfindel turned to him as he lied (And Finrod knew it was a lie). “Neither did I say the Fëanorions would all die. And I would not tell Fingolfin or you, or any-one, if I knew more. We all heard the Doom. The Noldor are pledged to war against Melkor, whom you called now Morgoth. There has to be hope.”

Their eyes were very close, mutually searching. At last Finrod said, “And is there none, then?”  
  
“We will burn.” Glorfindel's eyes were feral in the light. “I promise you that.”  
  
A frisson flashed down Finrod's spine, struck his stomach. He moistened his lips.  
“I wanted you to come back.” 

“And I wanted to come.” With a smile that stripped him naked. “I thought of it — of coming down from Ilmarin, surprising you...but I could not.”

“I understand.” And he did. “Why did your father want Amarië to marry me?” he asked, curious.  
  
Glorfindel shrugged. “He would not discuss it with me, although I think I know. I gave it as my opinion that I did not think you would be truly happy, either of you. The Noldor and Vanyar may breed fine children together, but I think the Noldor are too much for any-one save another Noldo. Or _almost_ any-one. Yes, and you, also. You all demand _so much._ ”  
  
His hands shook. _Yes, I did. I wanted and wanted, over and over._  
  
As if he was not perfectly aware of the impact of his words, his presence, Glorfindel said, “Later, my father told me that all Tirion spoke of your coming betrothal as a fact.”  
  
“One cannot be of the House of Finwë and in close friendship with a woman without rumor of a betrothal.” Finrod was breathless, hot. “If I had known your name I would have sought you out. I could hardly ask Amarië.”  
  
“Even if you had come, you would not have been able to see me.” His voice changed, buried its sensuality under cold iron.  
  
“You spoke of your father imprisoning you. Is that what he did?” He could scarce credit it, and the thought had too many grim connotations. So had Melkor-Morgoth been imprisoned in the Halls of Mandos for three Ages. It may have given peace to the world, but it seemed clear now to Finrod that the Dark Vala had only bided his time, brooding on vengeance.  
  
Glorfindel did not answer the question. He said, “Tell me truthfully, as it makes no difference now: Did I spoil what might have been between you and my sister?”  
  
“No,” Finrod shook his head. “I have always favoured men. I should have made it clear to my father long before, but I did not want to disappoint him.”  
  
“Fathers,” Glorfindel said in a strange tone. “You and my sister are alike in some ways. Neither did she wish to disappoint hers.”  
  
“I guessed that from certain things she said.” He turned the subject. “Why did you _not_ join Fingolfin? Why follow us alone?”  
  
“I thought of it,” Glorfindel admitted. “But I also thought he might attempt to send me back, which I could not have allowed. And then, there were those who fell behind. I was more useful where I was.”  
  
“You must have killed one of the white bears for your cloak. Who taught you to use a sword?” While archery, spear-throwing and hand-to-hand combat had been sport for the Noldor, competitions in their games, swords had never been used. 

“My father at first. He was a great warrior, once. When I showed aptitude, Eonwë and Oromë.”

“Eonwë seems to have been very busy.” The herald of Manwë had taught the Noldor, too. “Oromë? He tutored Fëanor's sons, and Fëanor himself.”

“I know. Oromë is...different. There is a wildness in him more suited to the unmapped lands of Endor, so my father says.”

Finrod had heard something similar from Celegorm. Fascinating, frustrating Celegorm, whom he had believed a friend. He shook his head. He should not have been surprised that the sons of Fëanor would follow their father, forsaking all other friendship or kinship, and in truth, he was not. Yet the abandonment still hurt.  
“Come with me,” he said.

Glorfindel turned, stared at him. Those eyes...! Finrod's knees almost buckled.

“ _That_ look.” Glorfindel caught him, dragged his hair back so that Finrod's neck arched. “I would take you now,” he hissed. “with your captains outside, and make you beg for me to take you, and keep taking you until nothing else existed. And if I went with you, I would never be able to leave you alone.”

“Do it.” Finrod dragged the words from some hot, dark place inside himself. “We will not be the only people seeking pleasure. The Ice has changed us, Glorfindel.”

“It has not changed you.” Glorfindel's voice dropped into something softer, yet more keen. His long fingers wrapped around Finrod's neck. The sensation made his heart pound, and not with fear. “You have rediscovered yourself. We were born to the comforts of Valinor, but the Quendi were created and fashioned for Middle-earth, which is not, any more, a paradise, if it ever was. Melkor nests in its bones. You have learned that you can look death in the eye and not flinch from it.”

“And you?” He tugged impatiently at his belt. “Have you discovered yourself also?”

The smile flared. “I know what I am. I always have. And I will never change. I enjoy it...far too much.”

The tent was cold when the flaps to the open fire outside were closed. There was no charcoal to feed the braziers. But there were other things of use here: Oil to tend the leathers, wine, water, skins to lie on. Finrod fell headlong into lust. He forgot the chill. The only reality was the thick, heavy weight of Glorfindel breaching him, the ecstasy of yielding wholly to his possession. The control that had encased him while crossing the Ice fell away, and all the horror and grief of the journey surged to the forefront of his mind. He wanted it purged from him, and Glorfindel knew it. Perhaps — no, undoubtedly — it was the same for him. Their desires came together and matched. Finrod wanted pain, force, savagery. Glorfindel gave it.

He tried to be quiet, did not know if he succeeded. Many had seen him with Glorfindel. Let them speculate if they wished. He doubted they would care. They had all, he thought, gone through too much.

The mood was different to the first time in Tirion. It had a crueler edge. His orgasms broke him into pieces, and the aftermath was as a heavy hand that pushed him to the bottom of a warm, dark ocean then released him to float to the surface. He would come back to himself then, wetness on his cheeks, breath coming in sobs until the hunger grew again, more desperate each time. Glorfindel was above him, driving, under him, behind him, hands hard on his hips. There came a time when he begged for surcease, certain he could take no more. Glorfindel seemed to have been waiting for that moment, to push him further. Finrod did not know what he was begging for any more, for it to stop or never stop.

The heralds trumpets broke them apart at last, and they lay back, breath settling into their chests. Glorfindel moved after a while, brought a ewer of water and cloths. Finrod stretched luxuriously, painfully, as Glorfindel bathed the spilled seed and sweat from them both. They drank wine with long, thirsty swallows.

“I do not know what to say to you.” Glorfindel propped himself on one arm, quoting Finrod from their first time together, and drawing a smile from him. “You take everything I give, and then more. You are a danger, Finrod, because you are insatiable, and a delight for the same reason.” He traced the kiss-bruised lips with one finger. “A man could lose himself in you.”

“You will not, because you will not come with me, will you?”

The dark brows winged together. His beautiful face, set like a cameo in its scroll-work of gold, was grave.  
“I have lost myself in you,” he said in a low voice. “In Tirion, and here. But there is a city, white-towered on a hill, ringed by snow-peaked mountains. A hidden place. I must go there.” He rose, reached out a hand to pull Finrod up. They were to meet Fingolfin for a last council before they marched to find Fëanor and his sons.

Finrod had thrown aside the clothes he had worn upon the ice, and now arrayed himself in blue, the colour of Glorfindel's eyes. He robed Glorfindel in amber doeskin, linked a chain of emeralds about his neck. By the time they were ready to leave, he had made a decision.

Nodding to his people as he passed them, (and trying to walk without wincing) he lead Glorfindel to where his stallion rested behind a makeshift shelter. His hide was warm, silken under the furs. The fine head rose, huffing moist breath as he nudged Finrod's breast.

 _My gallant one,_ Finrod spoke into the horse's mind. _Will you go with Glorfindel? I will not give you, like a possession, but he is of a house of princes and worthy of you._

The huge dark eyes turned to Glorfindel. 

“He will go with you,” Finrod said.

Glorfindel stared. “You cannot give him to me!”

“Of course not. He chooses it.”

The wind mourned about the shelter. Glorfindel ran his hand down the stallion's arching neck.  
“He is fit for any king,” he said. “I sent my own mount back, and I hope he walks in Valinor now. You honour me, Finrod. It would be churlish of me to refuse his companionship, but I would not take him from you.”

Finrod smiled. “You know as well as I that if he did not wish to go with you, he would not. He sees that in you he could love. He will serve you with a whole heart, and it is a mighty one. Rochallor, Fingolfin's stallion is his sire.”

“Fit for a king indeed.” Glorfindel's voice deepened to old bronze. “What is his name?”

“He is Asfaloth*.”

“Asfaloth,” Glorfindel repeated, then turned to Finrod. “I have no friends among the Noldor as yet, and had precious few among my own kin.” He did not sound concerned. There was a great air of self-sufficiency about Glorfindel, perhaps because he had refused to bend his will, change what he was and thus was left isolated. It did not fool Finrod for a heartbeat. “I would be honoured to call you one.”

They clasped wrists. Glorfindel pulled him closer, kissed him with such heat that Finrod wanted to lie down on the cold ground, be made to scream. Glorfindel saw it. His eyes lit like lamps but he drew back, murmured, “You are generous, Finrod. Be wary of such generosity in times to come. And be wary, too, of the sons of Fëanor.”

Finrod felt his mouth draw into a taut line.  
“Is this another prophecy you will not speak of?” he asked, then: “I doubt I will have aught to do with the Fëanorions.” Some of them had been his friends in Valinor: Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm. Did that matter now? “Fingolfin means to bring them to account.”

“Unexpected things may happen in war,” Glorfindel said quietly. “And you — _we_ — all face the same enemy. But the Oath binds them tighter than any kinship save the blood between them. Remember it.”

Finrod nodded. He knew it. “I will.”

Sorrow flashed and vanished in Glorfindel's eyes like a falling star. They walked out into darkness and firelight and a wind blowing now, from the South.

  


OooOooO

  
The double ranks of black pillars were linked by chains said to be of the same substance as _Angainor_ , that had once bound Morgoth. The road hammered between them, running straight as a spear across the empty plain to massive double doors black as onyx. They seemed to drink the daylight.  
  
Rarely had those doors been opened. Great statues flanked them, both identical: A man holding a book in one hand, the other raised in warning – or judgement. The Halls of Mandos. Finrod had come here after his own death in the deep dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth.

He drove away a shiver. To be without form was a horror far surpassing the agonies of dying but he did not know why he alone had been plucked out of Mandos, and re-embodied. He had faced Sauron, Morgoth's most powerful servant, and _lost_ , been torn apart by the teeth and claws of a werewolf, a dreadful black spirit trapped in the form of a beast. Others had done far more. Fingolfin had dueled with Morgoth, and Fëanor had battled four Balrogs single-handedly, but of course he was set apart, and his name was not spoken in Valinor.

Yet the doors of Mandos had opened for Finrod. Now they would open for another.

The High King had asked him to come to Ilmarin. Finrod, whom had come to understand the sorrow that lay behind Glorfindel's personal exile, had learned to hate Ingwë, and would have ignored the message save that he wanted to see his face see, at the least, regret in it.  
  
Ingwë told him that Glorfindel was to be granted re-birth.

Finrod had felt Glorfindel die as, in Middle-earth, he felt his brothers fall when the Dagor Bragollach broke in flame over Dorthonion, and Fingolfin's star-bright light snuffed out. There had been others since then, both hated and loved. The Doom was hard on the heels of the Noldor, ravenous as a starving wolf, and it would have no mercy.

But, it seemed, there was a little mercy, after all. Glorfindel had died fighting a Balrog. Many of them had burned into Gondolin. ( _“We will burn,”_ Glorfindel had said, and they had, many of them in life and death). His duel, his ultimate sacrifice, had allowed the refugees, including Idril, Turgon's daughter, to escape the city and Mandos, for whatever inscrutable reason, had decreed that Glorfindel would live again.

“I want you to be there,” Ingwë told him. “I know about you, Finrod. I know you were — and are — one my son loves and respects. And there are no others whom have been reborn. I think it will be hard for him, as it must have been for you.”

Yes. It had been and still was, but the hardest part was not knowing what was happening on Middle-earth. He waited for visions as a man waits for a knife to come out of the dark.

Ingwë, his wonderful white hair like an ice-fall, turned away to pick up a wine-cup. Finrod could see no pain in him, neither face nor voice. He spoke as a politician does, smooth and precise as the cut lettering on marble.  
“There is a war coming,” he said. “A war that will break the lands you knew, change the shape of the world, and end the Age.” He handed the wine to Finrod, who took it. “I have seen it. For my son's sake, I will fight in that war.”

“When?” He could not believe it. 

“We wait for the Light out of the East.” Ingwë's eyes reminded him of Glorfindel's looking into a future he could not change, and lying that he saw nothing. He had seen it all, Finrod believed, as did Ingwë. “But the war will not end the darkness.” A wry twist of his beautiful mouth. “There is much I may not tell even you, but this I will say: Glorfindel will return to Middle-earth in time to come.”

Finrod's voice came untuned by anger: “So he will be sent back, and perhaps die again? _Why_?” He wanted to strike Ingwë's perfect, emotionless face. 

“Death is always possible. Even here.” Ingwë stared into his own wine without drinking. Then he looked up. “You do not see it? No, how could you? Your life on Endor, your death has enriched you, Finrod, made you greater even than you were. Glorfindel will not go hence yet, Eru knows he has earned a little peace! but when he does, there will be very few who can outmatch him. He will be as a banner men may rally to. Hope from beyond the Sea.”

“I too would return,” Finrod said. But he had requested it, been denied, and no-one would tell him why. Ingwë answered him, as he expected, with silence, then surprised him with a question.  
“Why did you plead for them?” His head tilted like a cat's. Finrod met his eyes unblinking. He felt no shame or embarrassment, as he had not then, when he went down on one knee before the Valar.  
“I saw their Oath at work.” Eru! had he not? “I hoped that if I, whom they betrayed, forgave them, they might yet come out of the dark.” They were dead, bright, tormenting Celegorm, dark, passionate, Curufin, haughty Caranthir. Four of them left. He still hoped (less each day) for victory, but he had seen Morgoth's armies, and how the Doom twisted into the Noldor like veins through muscle. The fall of a people. They could never win, he knew that now, after waking to the landslide in his mind. Nirnaeth Arnoediad. 

“They did not swear the Oath to you,” Ingwë said gently, even with empathy. “And perhaps you do not truly forgive them.”

 _You see too clearly. And still I would have them return._ Rage and grief clotted in Finrod's throat.  
  
“Will you come?”

“He thought you disowned him,” Finrod said when he had gagged on and choked down emotion. _“My father is not...proud of me.”_ Was Ingwë proud of his son now? 

A tremor of something deep and nameless crossed that perfectly cold face.  
“I love him.” And now the emotion was not nameless at all. “He is...very much like me, or rather, as I was before I came here.” Ingwë swept an arm about the cool, white chambers. The movement held a controlled violence. Controlled for how long? “You do not believe it? I do not blame you.” His eyes searched Finrod's in a little silence that exploded with revelation. “Yes, I know of what I speak. I tried to forget it, to force my son into a mould. I could see nothing but a life of secrecy for him, and If I could not live as I desired — and I could not, High King of the Elves, in the councils of the Valar — then neither could he. I turned my back upon my true self and in doing so, I turned my back on my son and what he was. I thought I had to be _perfect_. I even thought to influence the Noldor, draw them away from their preoccupations toward enlightenment. I married my sister and one daughter into the House of Finwë hoping that they would temper the flames or dampen them entirely. They did not. I would have given Amarië to you knowing the both of you would be unhappy.” He paced gracefully to the long window as Finrod stared. To a lesser degree, he had believed that he, too had to be perfect, and well knew the pressures attendant upon kingship but a wave of anger swept through him.  
“I thought to come closer to Eru by removing here, dwelling at the feet of the Powers,” Ingwë murmured. “But too close to the Valar and it is like a transplanted flower growing in air too thin. It is simply what they are.”  
  
Finrod could well imagine. He thought of the orcs who dwelt too close to the powers they served.  
  
“I lost myself. I could not see through the light they shed. I did not realise, until Glorfindel left, that I had been closer to Eru in Middle-earth. I had lost so much, but the loss of my son was the greatest of all, and it woke me from a long delusion.” He turned, and something shifted within him. Like an arras drawing back, Finrod glimpsed the man under robes and crown, whom had woken under the stars of Endor. Ingwë had exchanged that freedom for Valinor and, ultimately, the high holiness of Taniquetil. Yet blood will tell, and his last seed had engendered Glorfindel. Finrod saw suddenly that when Ingwë went to war, he would be as lethal and pitiless as an ice storm. As was his son.  
  
Glorfindel, whom Finrod he had last seen in on the journey that lead him to a dream of Nargothrond, at it had lead Turgon to a dream of Gondolin. When they parted, he knew he would not see Glorfindel again. 

He had not imagined, at the beginning, that Glorfindel would follow Turgon, but of course he had not; he followed his destiny, and he had distinguished himself so valiantly in the Dagor Aglareb that any prince of the Noldor would have been glad to accept him into their household. He had fought under Fingolfin then, as had Finrod, who would never forget Glorfindel's terrifying beauty in battle. 

He realised he had not answered Ingwë. He wrenched himself away from memories.  
“I will come,” he said. “For _him_ ,” he added coldly. “Not for you.”

OooOooO

Finrod had emerged from Mandos to see his father waiting. Becoming accustomed to his new form had not been difficult but that meeting was, and so he stood aside in the shadow of the vast doors to give Ingwë and his son an illusion, at least, of privacy.

A wind like a sigh, scentless and cold, breathed from the depths of Mandos as the gates opened. It caught Glorfindel's hair, streamed it about his naked body. Finrod's heart jolted violently, and his skin burned. He understood then, what Ingwë meant when he said that very few would be able to outmatch Glorfindel reborn. He was almost _too_ bright, even here, as though fresh from a scouring fire. On Middle-earth he would be as the rising Sun and, like the Sun, he would burn against the Dark. 

Finrod saw the startlingly blue eyes widen as they found Ingwë. For a moment, the High King looked as remote as the Holy Mountain, with neither welcome nor censure in his face. Then came a shattering. He stepped forward, arms open — and his son went into them.

“Glorfindel.” Just his name, and the recognition of all he was. “I am so very proud of you.” He took the beautiful, wary face in his hands. “Of everything you are, of all you have done.”

“Of everything, father? I doubt it.” There was a sea of emotion under the steel. Finrod's hands clenched. 

“You were right; everything you thought, that you said to me. You were _right._ ” Glorfindel's eyes closed as if in pain. “I wish a thousands things unsaid, and deeds undone.” He drew his son close again, clasped him as if to press him through his own skin.  
  
“What did you do?” Glorfindel asked tightly, holding fast to him. “to bring me back?” Finrod could see the anger and hurt thrumming through him.  
  
Ingwë turned him, an arm about his waist. “We have much to speak of. But first, there is one here whom I think you should see,”

Finrod did not know how he appeared at that moment, but Glorfindel told him later: _“So beautiful, so very fine. And in your eyes the stamp of anguish and rage and_ life lived _we Exiles alone have earned.”_ He did not expect that Glorfindel would look like a man shot by an arrow from hiding, nor that he would bow as to a king, before long strides took him to stand before Finrod.

“I felt you die.” His voice was shaken.

“I felt you, also, even here.” Their arms clasped.

“The others?”  
  
Finrod shook his head. No, the dead were dead, and on Middle-earth they were still dying.  
  
Glorfindel's grip tightened. He said, with hammered passion. “I have been told that I am to return, one day, to Endor. And I want to. I _want to._ ” He caught fire. He looked like vengeance ready to be unleashed. “For all the names held in my heart, and yours not the least, Finrod. My dear.”

 

OooOooO

  


“You have not changed at all,” Finrod told him a long time later. There had been many words, and a time when words were not enough.

“Neither have you.”

Their fingers linked. They had, of course, taken other lovers in Middle-earth, but there would always be something between them, the glory of possessing and being possessed, passion. Memories. 

“Still I do not understand why we two alone were spared. My father will not tell me.”

“No more do I, but I will not give up,” Finrod promised. “I will never give up. I want them to return as much as you, if only,” he added with barren laugh. “for the sake of vengeance.”

They stared at one another in the lamplight, reading every graven image of their lives and deaths. Finrod, without wanting to, with the foresight that came whether he willed it or no, saw Glorfindel in the future, in Middle-earth. He let the images come, each crowding out the other: a palace in some green land, Glorfindel walking into a great throne room, battlefields where his hair streamed like the Sun's flames, a steep-sided valley, elegant houses and walkways strung by waterfalls, a barren land of ash, a smoking mountain, (and here, he felt phantom pain, a red slash of malice across his soul), a grim fortress in a bleak land, and Glorfindel burning like a torch, sword raised, as a shadowed shape of sorcery fled from him, dragging darkness in its wake.

He saw how Glorfindel's name and fame began to weigh on him as the years turned, and he grieved, for Glorfindel changed. His brightness did not diminish, but he lost something: the compassion that had carried a frightened youth off the Helcaraxë, the nobility that had faced a Balrog, the generosity of that sacrifice.  
  
“What do you see?” He heard the question, could not answer. The images pounded into his mind, relentless as surf. And then there was a face, young, vulnerable, huge eyes, a tender mouth, pale, shining hair. He was a stranger, but Finrod, who found his greatest pleasures in being cruelly dominated, recognised the same desire in those great, ice-blue eyes. Not a Noldo, this youth; he reminded Finrod of the Sindar, or the Green Elves of Ossiriand he had met when he journeyed East, something in the piquant curves of his face...

“What is it?” Glorfindel asked again, and the vision faded like incense-smoke. Like the smoke, it left a lingering sweetness.

Finrod smiled. “I saw love,” he said.  
  


OooOooO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a little nod there at the end to Esteliel's wonderful Glorfindel/Legolas [Anestel series.](http://archiveofourown.org/series/548)
> 
> * I like to think of Glorfindel having more than one horse called Asfaloth, or even Asfaloth himself being reborn in Valinor and going with Glorfindel back to Middle-earth.


End file.
